Multi-Generational Memory of Sexual Violence during the Holocaust in Women’s Art

The memory of sexual violence in Eastern Europe under German occupation during WWII has long been silenced by the opacity of local events to outside observers, a conspiracy of silence on the issue of collaboration, and conventions on how the Holocaust should be represented. Since the collapse of the USSR, the opening of archives has stimulated the production of a large and growing literature on the nature and causes of communal violence, but with relatively limited attention to sexual violence as an aspect of genocide. Based on a qualitative analysis of select audio-visual testimonies collected from non-Jewish Lithuanians since the 1990s, this paper demonstrates that local knowledge of sexual violence has persisted for decades in the post-genocidal space. However, these testimonies have been overshadowed by politicized narratives of national martyrology, and neglected by local and international researchers alike, despite their importance to the process of historical reckoning.

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Sexual Violence against Men and Boys during the Holocaust: A Genealogy of (Not-So-Silent) Silence*

German History ◽

10.1093/gerhis/ghaa032 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Dorota Glowacka

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Self Presentation ◽

Male Victim ◽

Adult Men ◽

Conflict Settings ◽

The Holocaust ◽

Legal Frameworks ◽

Male Heterosexual ◽

Jewish Survivors

Abstract Although far more women than men are sexually violated in conflict settings, the records indicate that sexual violence against men and boys has been routinely practised as a weapon of war and genocide. Sexual violence against men and boys during the Holocaust was likely a regular occurrence, but it has remained undocumented and under-researched. Sexual violence against men, because it does not conform to prevalent gender norms and expectations, has been subjected to cultural and epistemic erasure. As a result, it is construed on the model of female rape, making it difficult to recognize male-victim specific forms of assault. Moreover, normative and legal frameworks developed to address it do not take into account the role that the stigma of homosexuality plays in male sexual violence. This article is based on oral testimonies by male heterosexual-identified Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. I focus on the survivors’ self-presentation as adult men in light of their past abuse and on the dynamic of the interviews. I also reference one memoir (Nate Leipciger’s The Weight of Freedom) and reinterpret a chapter from Elie Wiesel’s Night in light of my findings. Revealing the extent of sexual violence against men helps delegitimize harmful gender stereotypes and conceptions of manhood and ‘homosexuality’ and expose their central role in the perpetuation of genocidal violence.

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